Future Loop Foundation
by Asymally
Summary: She's in limbo, no longer living in the past, but can't see forward to the future. Waking up from the dream is the only option. Entry for Vesper-chan's December contest


It's okay if you don't get it. I don't really get it either. :) For Vesper-chan's December contest.

Naruto and Peter Pan both don't belong to me

The Future Loop Foundation is a band, and I credit them with the title. It was just too perfect.

* * *

It was a never ending loop.

She walked out of the small hut that she called home, and readied herself for the cold.

What she was not expecting, was the tintinnabulation that surrounded her. Christmas carolers stood outside, smiling happily to those that passed, smiling to each other, smiling at _her_, with red windblown noses and cheeks, their lips spread wide showing their identical, perfect teeth.

Bells clanged together in perfect rhythm, perfect harmony.

Her heart clenched painfully in the remembrance of past Christmases, imperfect, fun, exciting ones, where the next morning brought sugarplum fairies, and the promise of gifts, and _love_.

Kicking at the snow, muddying it with her dirty shoes, she ignored the carolers, ignored the shocked silence as they watched her, ignored the glares of others.

She looked up at the perfectly blue sky with just the right amount of clouds, just the perfect amount of perfect snowflakes falling gently to the ground.

It really was disgusting.

A flake landed on her lashes and stayed there for a moment, before melting away into nothing.

It was her complete opposite. She wanted to stand out, to break the monotony that this world brought. With pastel pink hair and vivid green eyes, she was a far cry from the other people, with their brown hair, blonde hair, brown eyes, blue eyes. The occasional redhead, but it was always so close to brown that they still blended perfectly.

Suddenly, she was whipped forward. Puling slightly, she looked up into sky blue eyes.

"You're breaking the rules." He said in a dulcet tone.

Looking straight into his eyes, she matched his glare. "Which?"

"Rule 35 Section B, hair and eye color must be kept to a shade that is not shocking nor different."

Rolling her eyes, she looked away. It was the same everyday, the same policeman, the same lines, the same stern gaze, the same warning.

"I won't do it again officer, it'll be changed by tomorrow."

Pleased, he shined a dazzling grin towards her. As if this was a personal accomplishment, that _he_ had corrected a troublemaker.

It really was a shame he wouldn't remember it tomorrow.

Trudging the rest of the way home, she questioned what she was doing here. She had been born in the early 1900's; somewhere in between adolescence and adulthood, she had stopped growing. Stuck in limbo, she wandered around. She was no longer alive, but her heart kept beating. She had suffered through the Great Depression although the hunger had not affected her, she had witnessed the collapsing of the Twin Towers although she had not died when stuck under the rubble for 5 days, she had seen the leader that corrupted her free country of America.

The people had been brainwashed by his good looks, his charming words that when he suggested perfection out of his people, when he wanted everyone to be beautiful and wonderful and boring and dangerous that they sighed in pleasure at his smooth voice and complied.

She was different. She stood out, and therefore had been noticed.

She was a class 6 danger, someone of importance.

Someone that wouldn't be known by a street officer, but would be targeted.

And yet, when a man pressed a blade to her neck and whispered slowly into her ear about how she had been a problem for far too long and had to be eradicated she was surprised.

Turning her head slowly, letting his knife create a thin line circling the front of her neck; she looked at him.

He was looking at her with wide brown eyes.

Smirking dangerously, she ran the pads of her thumbs across his cheekbones, imagining what he would look like as someone like herself. The hair had to be changed, of course. She thought orange might suit his skin tone quite well. His eyes were actually good, a light brown that somehow seemed to change colors, sometimes almost golden, at other times a dark brown, almost black.

However, he was still too perfect, the skin too smooth, the features of his face too delicate. It needed to be marred.

"Want a taste of the fun side?" she whispered into the shell of his ear.

He shivered slightly, surprised at her equanimity.

And something inside him broke a little. His brain turned on a switch, or maybe turned one off. Looking at her, he lowered his knife.

"Why not?"

Smiling, she took his hand into her own and lifted them slowly into the air. She pressed her fingers against his palm, as if dialing a code, and he was overcome with a sudden acuity, as if he had been smoldering his whole life and suddenly burst into flame.

"Welcome," she said, "to the truth."

She was Peter, the seemingly innocent character that was tempting this child, although she was almost a child herself. She showed the way to adventure, to a never ending youth.

He didn't object when she pierced his perfect skin and placed studs in random places, around his nose, his lips. He didn't object when she dyed his hair orange, as not as bright as she had hoped, but a definite improvement over his previous black. He didn't object to his new name "Pein" because as she said, 'it brings fear.' He didn't object when she pressed her lips against his in something called a "kiss". When asked if he loved her, he answered 'yes' not quite understanding what love was, but knowing that whatever it was, it was for her.

It was snowing again that morning. Fluffy white flakes covering the ground, muffling any sounds, changing the city she lived in into a dream.

When she arrived at His house, her eyes were burning. She stormed past guards with Pein at her side, well trained in the art of death before Sakura had been introduced into his life.

She burst into His office, and time seemed to slow down for the first time in her life.

"Stop this." She said quietly, commanding.

Looking up at her with black eyes, his black hair framing his perfect porcelain face he shook his head.

"No." Gritting her teeth, she tried again.

"Madara, please…" He looked up sharply at that.

"I have no name. I am God." He said, but she saw behind that.

"No, you aren't," She walked toward him, stopping when right in front of him. Her hands explored the dips and grooves of his face as if trying to read his thoughts. "I am."

He glared fiercely behind her small hands, his eyes turning a piercing red.

Vaguely, she thought of Rule 35, section B. Surely red was shocking?

His large hand grabbed her face and pulled her closer. It was intimate, too close for comfort and unpleasant.

However, when Pein made a move to put an end to the awkward almost embrace, Sakura stopped him. She was looking only at Madara and his bright red eyes, contrasting sharply to her bright green.

Pein looked at them, the room suddenly growing dizzy. He thought vaguely of Christmas, how there used to be red and green, and a tree. It felt as if he was groggy, had gone to bed too late and stayed there for a month.

When Pein collapsed, Sakura took no notice.

"You're just a boy." She whispered, almost too softly to be heard, "Too young to be God."

"You're just a girl. Hardly older than me." He glared at her.

"Does it matter?" She was changing, suddenly a baby, flickering through different stages; there was a teenager, there was an old woman.

He lost his grip on the changing face.

Stumbling back, he looked at her in horror. "What _are_ you?"

She smiled, stepping back into the light that was beginning to stream through the large windows that surrounded them.

"A dream, maybe." Smiling, she seemed to flicker, suddenly there, suddenly gone.

She bent down to caress Pein's cheek. "I already took him back."

Her eyes hardened as she felt the cold flesh that greeted her fingers. "But you haven't been fixed. Not yet."

Looking at him, she pleaded that he could see. "You need to wake up."

He looked at her, lips pursed as he tried to understand her cryptic message.

"Don't think. Just open your eyes."

"I don't think you understand. I am awake."

She looked at him, her eyes half open, the green glowing brighter and brighter beneath sooty lashes.

"No." she said breathily. "Not yet."

She walked to him, tracing his perfect lips with a perfect finger. She gently pressed her lips to each of his eyes in turn, forcing them closed.

"Now you are." Her voice was fading, in and out, like she was at the end of a tunnel and he kept getting dragged away although he wanted to run to her.

His eyelids were so heavy. He wanted to open them, but it felt like he had been awake for years without sleeping.

Everything was black, except two specks of a shining green in the far distance.

Her voice echoed through his head. "Wake up."

And with great effort he opened his eyes to see whitewashed walls and a perfect blue sky.

* * *

Sakura stood in the room as the framework of the entire house began to crumble. It felt like the world was ending, partly because it was. She picked up Pein's body and walked out of the room into the hallway. Looking up, she saw the perfect blue sky being torn away in strips, leaving nothing but a deep emptiness behind.

She smiled, and walked out of the house.

She walked past the roads that were now cracking, falling apart. She looked and saw the people running in a frenzied panic screaming, why isn't the sky blue? Where is the police? Where is God?

She walked into her small hut, walked calmly past a stricken street officer with blond hair and blue eyes.

She lay down Pein's body on the worn, bare floor. Curling up, she lay down next to him, her head lying against his chest. She closed her eyes and went to sleep.

Somewhere in between the ground falling beneath her and the sky swallowing the remnants of humanity, for the first time in 900 years, her heart stopped beating.

Although maybe it hadn't been beating in the first place.


End file.
